KINNA – Nr1 Adressa-Trykk, located in Orkanger just outside Trondheim, is one of Norway’s most important printing companies with its 29 permanent newspaper titles. Half of the company is owned by Polaris Media A/S and the other half by Amedia A/S, two of Norway’s biggest players in newspaper publishing and production. Nr1 Adressa-Trykk Orkanger was established in 2007 and has since developed a new printing facility in the small community of Orkanger, which is strategically located to handle the logistics of the Norwegian midlands – an important requirement for the considerable number of titles they produce. A new Tensor T400 printing press was installed in 2008 with production starting on 1 January 2009.

Thanks to its two owners, Nr1 Adressa-Trykk Orkanger can offer an almost unrivalled level of experience when it comes to automatic closed-loop density control systems. Even before DCOS introduced its closed-loop density control system, Polaris had installed systems from a different supplier at its facilities in Ålesund in 2007, and Heimdal in 2011. In turn, A-Media chose to invest in the DCOS Inspection System for its new Manroland press in Biri in 2012. “In light of our client’s experience of automatic closed-loop density control systems, we’re incredibly proud that they chose our technology and solution for their facility in Orkanger which, with its 12 webs, will also become the largest installation of its kind in the Nordic region. This is an important milestone and a fantastic reference for us,” says Mattias Andersson, CEO of DCOS. 

Nr1 Adressa-Trykk Orkanger took a couple of years to evaluate and negotiate an investment in an automated closed-loop density control system, and in March of this year, the Board took the decision to buy the DCOS Inspection System with density control. "We have a long-standing relationship with DCOS both here in Orkanger and at several other sites within the group that we are very pleased with. We’re attracted not only by the system’s simplicity, but the fact that the system is self-calibrating means that running costs are negligible, which is an important parameter. With our experience and results from the DCOS installation on the manroland press in Biri, we’re confident that we’re making the right investment,” says Ketil Danielsen, general manager at Nr1 Adressa-Trykk Orkanger. 

All twelve printing lines will be equipped with two DCOS CRC4 cameras on each side of each web to continually measure the density and color register in all ink zones. The CRC4 cameras then send commands to the press to fine tune the opening of each ink keys and register motors.

The DCOS control system takes ink coverage data for each printing plate from the pre-press and, for every production, the system learns how the press’s ink transfer characteristics look by linking all of the data from the press with the measurements from the CRC4 cameras and the pre-press.

All of this data helps the system to accurately preset the ink keys before a new printing job, which means that the press can, in principle, be started with the correct ink values and can rapidly produce saleable copies.

Joar Staveli, production manager at Nr1 Adressa-Trykk, said of the investment: “The two main arguments for us are, of course, reducing waste and being able to guarantee consistently high quality. Additionally, we already have quite a low level of staffing, so the investment will free up a lot of time that we can then devote to preparing for the next production run. This, combined with shorter start-up times, increases the time available on the press and gives us the opportunity to use this for additional production.”

“The statistics and reporting capabilities of the system will also be important for us, not least for the optimisation of the press,” Ketil Danielsen adds.

The system will be installed this summer and will become the fifth printing press to be equipped with the DCOS CRC4 inspection system since it was first installed in January 2013, with currently two ongoing installations in Germany.